Firms Find Ways to Cut Big-Data Costs

Facebook-Inspired Designs Are Helping Some Companies Build Data Centers On the Cheap

By

Rachael King

March 23, 2014 4:56 p.m. ET

Hardware costs can add up quickly in the era of big data.

As large companies collect, analyze and store increasing quantities of information, the expense of adding servers, hard drives and other equipment is threatening to crimp their big-data plans. Indeed, hardware sales related to corporate-data projects are expected to more than double to $15.7 billion in 2017 from $7.16 billion last year, according to Wikibon, a Marlborough,...